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The day dies out upon your hills,
O earth where my steps languish!
When will you, my eyes, when will you, alas!
Greet the divine splendors
Of the day that will not fade?
Are they open to the darkness,
These gazes thirsting for the day?
From its brightness, O Night! to your gloomy shadows
Why do they pass in turn?
My soul is not yet weary
Of admiring the work of the Lord;
The flaming impulses of this heart that adores Him
Had not exhausted my heart!
God of day! God of nights! God of every hour!
Let me soar upon the fires of the sun!
Where goes that rosy cloud toward the west?
It goes to veil the threshold of your holy dwellings
Where the eye knows no more night nor sleep!
Yet they are beautiful to the eye of hope,
These fields of the firmament shaded by night;
My God! in these deserts my eye finds again and follows
The miracles of your presence!
These sparkling choirs that your finger alone leads,
These oceans of azure where their throng surges,
These beacons lit from distance to distance,
This star that appears, this star that flees,
I understand them, Lord! all sings, all instructs me
That the abyss is filled by your magnificence,
That the heavens are alive, and that your providence
Fills with its power all that it has produced!
These waves of gold, of azure, of light,
These nebulous worlds that the eye cannot count,
O my God, it is the dust
That rises beneath your steps!
O Nights, unroll in silence
The pages of the book of the heavens;
Stars, revolve in cadence
In your harmonious paths;
During these solemn hours,
North winds, fold your wings,
Earth, hush your echoes;
Spread your waves over the shores,
O sea! and rock the images
Of the God who gave you your waves.
Do you know His name? Nature
Gathers in vain its hundred voices,
Star to star murmurs
What God imposed our laws on us?
Wave to wave asks
Who is the one who rebukes us?
The thunder says to the north wind:
Do you know how your God is named?
But the stars, the earth and man
Cannot finish His name.
How narrow, Lord, are your temples for my soul!
Fall, impotent walls, fall!
Let me see that sky which you steal from me!
Divine architect, your domes are of flame!
How narrow, Lord, are your temples for my soul!
Fall, impotent walls, fall!
There is the temple where you dwell!
Beneath the vault of the firmament
You rekindle these swift fires
By their eternal movement!
All these children of your word,
Balanced on their double pole,
Swim in the heart of your clarities,
And from the heavens where their fires pale
Upon our globe they reflect
Fires borrowed from yourself!
The Ocean plays
At the feet of its King;
The north wind shakes
Its wings of dread;
The thunder praises you
And fights for you;
Lightning, the storm,
Crown your head
With a triple ray;
Dawn admires you,
Day breathes you,
Night sighs for you,
And the earth expires
With love at your name!
And I, to praise you, God of suns, what am I?
An atom in immensity,
A minute in eternity,
A shadow that passes and is no more,
Can you hear me without a miracle?
Ah! the miracle is your goodness!
I am nothing, Lord, but your thirst devours me;
Man is nothingness, my God, but this nothingness adores you,
It rises by its love;
You cannot scorn the insect that honors you,
You cannot repel this voice that implores you,
And which toward your divine dwelling,
When the shadow evaporates,
Rises with the dawn,
Still groans in the evening,
Is reborn with the day.
Yes, in these fields of azure that your splendor floods,
Where your thunder roars,
Where you watch over me,
These accents, these sighs animated by faith,
Go seeking, from star to star, a God who may answer me,
And from echo to echo, like voices on the water,
Rolling from world to world,
Resound all the way to you.
Florence, March 9, 1826.
Alphonse de Lamartine
Translation generated by Poésies 123 with assistance from the deepseek-chat artificial-intelligence model.
Text published on Poésies 123: https://www.poesies123.com/en/poem-the-hymn-of-the-night-alphonse-de-lamartine/